Torque
by VeryBadMau
Summary: In the midst of trying to adjust to their new life in Egypt, Malik's perceptions of his sister are challenged. Of this, he finds that the greatest difficulty in living together is accepting that he and Isis share more similarities than he'd like to admit. Rishid, meanwhile, is happy they have something in common. Ishtar family shenanigans. Three-parter.
1. HEINEKEN OF KEMET

**Torque**

Author's Notes: This was originally going to be a one-shot, but the moment it went over 10,000 words, I decided to break it up into three parts to make it easier on the eyes. This fic was meant to be a light read, so I'll space out my updates to reflect this.

With that said, I hope you all have as much fun reading this story as I did writing it.

Warnings: Underage drinking, some swearing, and _one_ F-bomb.

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! and its characters are copy-written to Kazuki Takahashi and Konami. I just come up with drawn-out hypothetical situations.

* * *

 **HEINEKEN OF KEMET**

Their departure from the Land of the Rising Sun had been bittersweet. All the chaos of Battle City and Alcatraz shrank as they sailed for the horizon, and they left with just a little less weight on their shoulders. Yet not _all_ the weight was gone. They still had the responsibility of guiding the Pharaoh to his tomb when the time came.

At the very least, they still had room to prepare and, most importantly, they could prepare as a family. They had an opportunity no other Ishtar had known before them: to build a new life in the light.

A new life based on Isis' status, they realized quickly, and the weight in their hearts increased as they thought of the new burden they placed on their sister. After she had already done so much...

"We'll find a place as soon as we can," Malik urged from the back seat of the spacious SUV. Rishid closed his eyes with a steady hum.

"Are you sick of me already?" Isis asked quietly from the front passenger seat, their ubiquitous chauffeur silent as he focused on the road. "Did I cry too much?"

Malik recoiled into the tan leather, rolling his fingertips at the memory. Isis had tried to keep her composure, but started shedding tears an hour into the trip, saying how happy she was they were together again and how lonely she had been. He remembered wiping her tears away and promising never to abandon her the way they had, his own voice quivering and vision blurring as he held her to his chest before Rishid encircled them both with his expansive arm span in a group hug.

 _And here I just said something that betrayed my promise no more than a week ago. Great progress, Malik Ishtar_ , he thought bitterly.

"Breathe, little brother," Isis tittered over her shoulder, "it was a joke."

Malik exhaled as he realized he really was holding his breath. Rishid placed his hand on his shoulder and squeezed with a reassuring smile.

"How much farther to your apartment, Lady Isis?"

"People only call me 'Lady Isis' or 'Miss Ishtar' when I'm working, Rishid," Isis laughed again. "I'd like it if you just called me 'Isis' or 'sister'."

"Of course, L— _Isis_ ," Rishid corrected himself, and Malik pursed his lips with another thought.

Even that was a change they needed to get used to.

 _Another bad habit to break._

\- 0 – 0 – 0 -

"I know it's not Garden City, but..."

"You got a place in Heliopolis?!" Malik repeated, almost dropping his bags in front of a tidy gated apartment complex surrounded by date palms, sycamores, and papyrus plants.

"I didn't want to be far from the museum once I became Secretary General," she shrugged with an air of embarrassment. "It's only two bedrooms, so it might be a little cramped..."

What Malik expected was a cozy apartment with a refined aesthetic to reflect the elegant exterior of the oasis-like complex and his own sister's tastes, but when they stood inside, it was far sparser than she had implied. The ceiling was tall and the walls were bare, a hue so pale it reflected a blue glow in the low lighting. There was also a chill that made one's hair stand on end, not from the constant air conditioning in the building, but the sheer emptiness of the space itself. The only signs that a person had been living there was an Eye of Wdjat charm hanging above the door, a beige futon and small television in the living room, a table in the kitchen, and a coffee machine and a microwave on the counter. If anyone had dared to break in, they would have been severely disappointed, or they would have left a possession of their own out of sympathy.

"It's quite... minimalist," Rishid commented.

"I didn't see much use in keeping many things when I foresaw–" She stopped herself from saying anything further with the shake of her head and a tight smile as she lifted her luggage. "It's not important anymore. What matters is that you're here now. Let me show you to your room."

Malik's eyes trailed over the barren walls as they walked down the hallway, the shadows of guilt bubbling in his stomach. His sister had caught herself before saying too much, but the Spartan atmosphere spoke volumes.

 _Whatever is here is all she owns,_ he thought sadly. It was all she could assure herself she _could_ own. She was living in Heliopolis and held the highest executive position in the Supreme Council of Antiquities, so he knew it wasn't a matter of finances. It was done out of personal philosophy, a provision for what she had foreseen before the path altered.

"This will be where you will stay," she opened the door to the second bedroom and Malik was relieved to find two beds. So she hadn't lost _all_ hope back then...

"I used it more as my home office," she pointed to the desk in the corner with a hutch. It faced the window with a view of the pool and the meticulously landscaped garden. "But I can move into the living room quite easily so you can have your privacy. It's right across from the second bathroom."

Malik nodded half-heartedly as he focused on the only thing he had seen on the walls aside from the Eye of Wjdat: a line of black frames alongside the desk. Each piece bore an emblem of the god Thoth with "Cairo University" proudly emblazoned across the sheets of paper. His eyes flashed in acknowledgment and surprise, his focus scattered across the words Bachelor's, Master's, esteemed honors and an odd Latin phrase he didn't recognize.

 _Summa cum laude?_

"Sister, you earned these?" Malik pointed to the degrees and certificates. "Where did you find the time?"

"Due diligence," Isis shrugged modestly, crossing her hands across her lap, "and a lot of Turkish coffee."

His thoughts wandered to the machine she had in the kitchen and wondered how many cups she had consumed in the last five years. How many consecutive days and nights had she spent on a caffeine binge to get those pieces of paper on her wall?

Another pang of guilt settled in his gut. She needed to go to the university to get the job, and the reason for getting the job was because–

"I had fun," Isis said suddenly with a warm smile. "As much as I allowed myself."

Malik furrowed his brow and tried to smile.

 _As much as the Torque would allow you._

"Why hang them here?" Rishid asked, holding his chin in his hand. "Would they not be more suited to your office at the Council building?"

"They are," Isis informed. "I had to file for multiple copies in order to provide the credentials to the Council. You wouldn't believe the paperwork involved."

Malik massaged his own chin at the words. Paperwork, another concern they had to think about if he and Rishid were to lead a normal life, the unavoidable bureaucratic element. How ironic it was that they had tried to break free of the darkness that came with their name. Yet it was Isis in the end who walked in the light of day with a clean slate, even as she clung so tightly to Gravekeeper tradition.

"I also put these here because there wasn't any space left in my bedroom," she added, an almost sheepish tone to the words.

This piqued Malik's interest and provided some relief. So there were walls that weren't completely bare.

"Can we see it?" Malik asked. There was a hesitant sound as Isis placed her knuckles to her lips, eyes averting to a corner in the floor.

"Ah, well..."

"Not that you _have_ to!" Malik replied quickly, reaching out with stretched fingers. "Not if you don't want to. I was just trying..."

 _Trying to find some common ground._

"You don't have to show me. It's private. It's fine," he repeated.

"No, it's all right," Isis said with a small smile. "If we're going to live together for the time being, you'll have to poke your head in every now and again. I was just about to warn you I didn't clean it up before I left for Japan. Back this way..."

When Isis opened the door to her room, their senses were assaulted with the scent of fallen trees with an oxidized note of vanilla, and their eyes burned with the rich amber glow that bounced off the contents of her bedroom when she flipped on the light switch. Rishid lifted his brows in appreciation while Malik's jaw went slack.

It was at the moment Malik believed, quite avidly, that one of the greatest tragedies in history were naught more than a fabrication. The contents within the Library of Alexandria had never burned along with its building. Instead, what had really happened was that his sister tore open a portal in time and space with the Millennium Torque, rescued everything the library housed within, and shoved it all in her room for safekeeping from the rest of the world.

That was the only explanation he would accept. Otherwise, he was going to have to go along with the more mundane explanation in that his big sister was a filthy bibliophile who thought books were an acceptable placeholder for wallpaper and–

Dear Thoth, the cases were _overflowing_. Whatever wasn't on a shelf rested on top of a case, the literature stacked one on top of the other until they reached the ceiling. Save for the windows that framed her twin-sized bed, the only reason there was a space that lacked any books was because he was fairly certain the specifically door-shaped hole in the corner led to her bathroom.

"You always did like to read," Rishid said with raised brows, tracing the edges of the ceiling. He noted the subtle glow bouncing off the transparent Moroccan styled ceiling drapes, a complement to the mahogany toning of the room. "Small wonder you earned a Master's in such a short span of time."

"Small wonders still require great effort," Isis intoned. The darkness in Malik's stomach retreated as he saw her eyes go alight when she trailed her fingers over a row of thick volumes on the shelf next to the door. There was no doubt in Malik's mind that he could have lived ten lifetimes and still not have read the amount of content Isis had stored in her bedroom, let alone what she had read beforehand. When they were children, if Isis could not be found in her room, then he knew he could always find her hidden away in the archives.

She was named for the goddess of fate, but Malik had always felt the Scribe played a hand in her life. In that, the emblem of Thoth branding her academic conquests were quite suiting, and Malik smiled at the thought. He expected nothing less of his sister.

What he didn't expect, however, was what he and Rishid found in her refrigerator when they looked for something to drink right after.

Rishid only tilted his head in a questioning motion while Malik's eyes boggled at the repeating array of blue stars against a field of yellow and green labels, cans and bottles neatly arranged in rows and filling the shelves to capacity.

"Sis-sister?" Malik squeaked. "Why is there nothing but Stella in your fridge?"

As if on cue, Rishid turned his attention to a random cupboard out of curiosity and found untouched cases of the Egyptian beer lining the shelves. Thoth faded from Malik's mind and he beheld an image of the goddess Sekhmet hovering over his sister, claws drawn and salivating, whispering lurid things in Isis' ear in her times of loneliness. The guilt made itself known once more in Malik's gut and his hand went to his mouth at the conclusion.

His actions had caused his sister to develop a drinking problem.

 _Sister, I'm so sorry..._

"It looks bad, doesn't it?" Isis asked with a titter as she entered the kitchen, placing her hand to the back of her neck. "I don't have guests over often, so it sits a while."

"Why so much if you rarely have guests?" Rishid asked genuinely, with no judgment or preconceptions, and Malik cursed his older brother for his purity of mind.

"Rishid, don't you see? It's because–"

"It's all gifted to me," Isis laughed. "I haven't had to pay for my own drinks in over a year."

Malik's eyes widened as his sister turned her palm upward in further explanation.

"Since I'm the executive head of the board, I have to attend monthly meetings with the Minister of Tourism. He always brings a case of Stella for myself and the Minister of Culture. The brewery has been under private label for quite some time now, but the Ministry of Tourism still has to conduct inspections, and the owners have always given away the newest batches for 'sampling purposes'. It's always been something of a tradition to do, and it's impolite to refuse a gift, so..."

Isis shrugged with another embarrassed smile.

"It would also be in bad taste for a representative of Egypt to pour the country's national beer down the drain," Isis concluded.

Rishid expressed himself with a small nod in understanding while Malik blinked rapidly. Well, he supposed that was a far better— far more _preferable_ _—_ explanation than his sister being a functioning alcoholic.

"I prefer Luxor myself, but I suppose one can't complain with it being free," Isis continued. "I just can't drink enough of it by myself to keep up."

Once more, Malik had to adjust to the thought. She had developed enough of a palate to know she had a _preference_? He had never pegged his big sister as someone who enjoyed drinking it to begin with. He always thought Isis would have been more of a wine spritzer type of person.

 _All right,_ _then_ , he told himself. It wasn't that big of a deal. His big sister was a responsible, sensible adult who had been living on her own all this time. It wasn't far out of line for her to enjoy a cold one every now and again.

"Though I suppose much of it needs to be cleared out if we're going to be living together," Isis reasoned. "I assume you both would like something that isn't fermented, and I certainly can't expect you both to want to dine out all the time. I confess I am remiss on stocking groceries. I spend so much time at work, I've admittedly gotten lazy about my cooking."

Malik had to make another mental adjustment. So his sister didn't like to cook? But she made the best koshari growing up...

"How do you propose we clear it out?" Rishid asked, glancing back to the fridge. "I agree with you in that it does seem wasteful to pour it down the sink."

"We could line up a few six packs and have a shotgun contest," Isis joked.

Malik's neck slowly stretched forward and his mouth lost tension at the words. He must have heard her wrong. There was no way _Isis_ of all people just said–

"Why would you want to shoot at the cans?"

Isis and Malik balked in unison as they stared at a baffled Rishid, before Isis placed a hand to her mouth and started snickering into her palm.

"Oh, Rishid," she giggled, "I've missed your candor."

Rishid could only stare in bewilderment as she folded over herself, placing a hand on her knee to keep herself stable as the other remained over her lips. Tears started forming in the corners of her eyes from laughing so hard.

Malik, meanwhile, was not as amused, his brow knitted and arms limp as he stared at her falling into hysterics.

"Sister," Malik uttered soberly, "just what did you do in college?"

\- 0 – 0 – 0 -

Malik couldn't sleep.

He wondered if they should have taken her joke seriously and drank their fill instead of putting away their luggage and heading out for dinner. Perhaps then he wouldn't have had so much trouble drifting off. He thought, among the endless lines of Stella, he had seen a teapot and a canister of chamomile among her cupboards, and slowly got out of bed as not to wake Rishid.

He toed lightly through the apartment, thankful for the soft carpet quieting his movements, but stopped when he saw a blue glow spilling into the hallway.

It had taken all of five minutes to move the desk out of their room and into the main living area, and when he peered around the edge of the wall, he saw Isis sitting with her back turned to him. Her frame blocked the light of a laptop, leaning forward on her elbows and head bowed low, massaging her temples with a deep sigh.

"I don't want to do this," she murmured to herself. With several taps along the keyboard, she logged into her government email and made an uncomfortable sound, a pinging behind her forehead as the messages flooded her vision.

"Really?" she moaned. "I don't check it for two weeks and everything descends into chaos. It's going to be a long day tomorrow..."

Malik blinked and hugged the wall. Did Isis have a hard time sleeping often? Did she talk to herself a lot when she was alone? He supposed he couldn't blame her for either when all she had to keep her company prior were her thoughts and her books. Then he arched his brow when he registered a small cylindrical object resting on the right side of the desk in the blue light.

"I cannot deal with this right now," she moaned again, pinching her temples before reaching for the object. Malik realized it was a single can of Stella, and he didn't react. He supposed he couldn't blame her for that either. They had all just arrived, yet she was heading straight into work tomorrow. Malik and Rishid were transitioning to a new life altogether; Isis had to jump back into the one she already had.

"Malik?"

The young Egyptian jumped as Rishid touched his shoulder with the whisper.

"Damn it, Rishid, don't sneak up on me like that!" he flinched, mindful of his volume. The carpets hid sound too well, he decided.

"Are we spying?" he asked simply.

"No, we're not _spying_. She's our sister, not a gang lord," Malik whispered defensively.

"What is she doing with that letter opener?"

Malik was about to ask "What letter opener?" before his eyes followed Rishid's gaze back to Isis. She held the can horizontally in the air with her finger poised beneath the tab and in a swift, routine motion, poked a hole in the bottom. The sharp snap and hiss zinged through their ears as she popped the tab up and turned the can to a vertical orientation, drinking from the opening she had created with the small knife.

Malik's jaw clenched and his hand locked over his mouth to prevent himself from screaming at her.

 _Sister, what did you do in college?!_

In a matter of seconds, Isis exhaled and pulled the now empty can away from her mouth, crunching the thin aluminum in her fist as she wiped her lip with the back of her hand.

" _Now_ I can deal with this," she sighed to herself as she tossed the can into the small bin next to her desk.

Malik's right eye twitched.

No, no, no, no, _no_.

That was _wrong_. That was _not_ what just happened. His sister was the kind of person who sat quietly in the back of the library reclined in a puffy beanbag chair and shooed away anyone who who dared to interrupt her self-imposed education on the military legacy of the Sea Peoples. His sister was the kind of person who studied diligently in her room about the artistic influence of the Hittites while the doomed generation enacted their debauchery elsewhere. His sister was an upstanding scholar of high moral character who _did not shotgun_ _her_ _beers_ like some sort of degenerate frat boy from that really old college movie he saw that one time on late night television in the States.

He wouldn't, however, have put it past her to wear a toga. If anyone could pull it off in public, it would be his sister.

But he did not, not, _not_ just see her poke a hole in her beer so she could drink it all in one sitting to deal with her government workload. The Isis he knew wasn't like that.

"Malik? Rishid?"

The hair bristled on the back of Malik's neck with the mention of their names, and Isis glanced over her shoulder with a tired smile.

"Are you both going to stand back there watching me go through emails all night or are you going to head into the kitchen and help me clear out some of the Stella?"

\- 0 – 0 – 0 -

"I'm never drinking again."

Screw the Aussie international student who thought he was being clever by teaching a cute, single Egyptian girl the optimal way to stab a beer. Or did Isis tell him it was a British guy that taught her how to do it? Or was it a Bulgarian _?_ Perhaps an American? Malik had a hard time staying coherent after the sixth one.

Whatever. It didn't matter. Regardless of nationality, Malik hated him for corrupting his sister and he hoped wherever that bastard was, he was laying in an alley somewhere drowning in his own piss. Fuck that guy.

His bloodshot eyes squinted at the bottle in his hands and was relieved to find the word "aspirin" on the label. He tried to ignore his disheveled reflection in the mirror as he popped the white tabs in his mouth and swallowed with a gulp of water. After he splashed some more on his face and turned off the faucet, Malik went to turn the lid back on the medication, taking careful consideration not to cross the threads.

The white tablets scattered across the counter top and all over the bathroom floor when he was startled by someone knocking on the apartment's door. It sounded as though the person on the other end was trying to break it down with their fists.

"I'll get it," Rishid shouted diligently. He had only partaken in two drinks last night. Though truthfully, he only had one. The first was a complete loss when Isis tried to show him how the physics of it all worked and the stream was too fast to keep up with. The second was a leisurely imbibement and he decided that was all he had wanted before he politely dismissed himself for bed. He had woken to find Malik and Isis sprawled on the futon surrounded by empty cans some hours later, and he had draped a blanket over them while he cleaned up the mess.

As it was now, however, Isis was hurriedly getting dressed in her room while Malik was fighting off a hangover. Rishid was the only person who was in the position to answer with a lick of dignity. Ever vigilant, Rishid didn't opt to open the door right away and stared into the peephole. There stood three suspicious looking men in black suits and turbans. Rather, at least two of them were wearing turbans. The man in front was so tall, his chest was level above the view and Rishid couldn't see his face.

A hiss escaped through his teeth as he recoiled from the door. They pounded against the wood again, rattling the hinges with the action, and Rishid was immediately wary. He and Malik just arrived in country. Without the presence of the Rod or even the Torque, unexpected company was not welcome nor easily dealt with.

Another worry crossed his mind. Now that they were living with Isis, she was in a position of danger as well. If anyone knew of her connection with them, then that meant there was a target branded on her back. The Ghouls were not wholly disbanded yet, and their enemies were many. He couldn't protect both at the same time if they were in different places, but he could protect them here, right now.

Rishid moved over to the futon. He could barricade the door and buy them some time.

"Rishid, I thought you were getting the door," Malik groaned, rubbing his head with a wince. "All that noise is killing me. What do they want?"

The platinum blonde Egyptian reached for the knob and Rishid gasped.

"Malik, no! Don't–!"

Malik did, and he rubbed his eyes as the entryway flooded with light.

"What's your problem?" Malik murmured through the slits of his eyes. "Did'ja really need to bang so hard? Don't you have any manner— Oh, _shit!_ "

When his eyes had adjusted to the lighting and opened completely, he came face-to-chest with a brick wall of a man who dwarfed even Rishid's build, sharp eyes cut into a broad face, chin framed by a short-boxed beard. The sunlight glinted off the small, hooped gold rings in his ears, a reflection that perfectly aimed for Malik's pupils and made him flinch. He barely registered the other two men alongside him before the behemoth spoke in a voice so deep, Malik and Rishid could feel a vibration in their own diaphragms.

"We are here for Isis Ishtar."

"OVER MY GRAVE!" Malik screamed before he slammed the door shut and made quick work of the locks. "Rishid, why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"I tried to–"

"Help me get the futon up! The door isn't gonna hold that huge bastard for long!"

They scrabbled for the only immediate furniture in the apartment and lifted it off the floor with little effort.

"What are you doing?"

Isis stood perplexed by the entryway. She wore yet another simple crème dress that revealed her shoulders, flowing sleeves stopped just below the elbows, golden bands encircling her waist and wrists, her favored jewelry atop her head like a crown. At her feet was a pair of sensible white pumps and at her neck was a small jade pendant dangling from a thin gold chain. A brown leather satchel hung off one shoulder and she gripped the strap tightly in both hands.

Malik scoffed inwardly. Between Rishid wearing a respectable pair of black slacks and a purple shirt and his sister practically glowing in her dress, he felt like a hot mess in his black boxer shorts and wife beater.

But appearances didn't matter right now. Isis' safety was paramount. Their family just got back together, and they weren't going to part without a fight.

"Why are you moving the futon, and why hasn't anyone answered the door?"

"Isis, get away from there!" Malik dropped his end of the futon and sprinted to where she stood, slapping Isis' hand away from the knob as the impatient rapping continued on the other side of the door. He flattened his shoulder against the surface and applied his full weight, face flush with the wood. "Rishid, hurry! I don't know if I can hold him off when he decides to stop messing around!"

"I'm trying, Malik," Rishid said, scooting the futon across while his feet struggled to find traction on the smooth white carpet.

"What has gotten into you two?" Isis asked, and she held out a flat palm to stop Rishid from advancing any further with the furniture.

"There are three shady guys outside in black suits and they want to kidnap you!" Malik screeched. "Isis, I know you don't want to, but you have to take all your books off the shelves so we can move the cases next! We have to stall them!"

"Shady men in suits?" she repeated slowly. "Pray tell, are they wearing turbans?"

"Yeah!"

"And is one of them a rather tall Persian with a short beard and earrings?"

"Yes! Hold on, wait," Malik blinked. "How would you know that guy is Persian?"

"Hathor, help me," Isis muttered as she cradled her face in her hands, taking a deep breath before lifting her head and clasping her fingers together. "Malik, may I please have a look through the door before we build a fort in the hallway?"

The question was rhetorical as Isis brushed her brother's hair away from the peephole and assessed who was on the other side. She knitted her brow and looked her little brother in the eye, placing her hands akimbo.

"Malik, those aren't kidnappers. Those are my bodyguards. They've come to escort me to work."

Malik and Rishid dropped their shoulders along with their lower lips and stared at her.

"You don't recognize them?" Isis asked incredulously.

Her brothers exchanged a glance and shook their heads.

"Don't you remember them at all from that night at the museum?"

She was met with more silence.

"You know, when you both _blew out the window_ looking for Obelisk?" she emphasized. She was _still_ waiting on the finalization of that report to review the budget for the next fiscal year.

Rishid looked to the carpet guiltily while Malik tore himself away from the door. His eyes were wide as saucers as he pointed at the entrance.

" _Those_ are the guys I knocked out with the Rod that night?"

Isis placed her fingertips to her forehead and sighed.

"Yes, Malik, and you also took control of one of them and forced him to retrieve the Winged Dragon of Ra from the Valley of the Kings. Of all of them, he should have been the most familiar to you."

There was a pregnant pause between the siblings before Malik clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth. He took control of a lot of people back then, but there was no telling whether to not the guards remembered the experience or _his face_ for that matter. Regardless of memory, Malik had just yelled at them and slammed the door in their noses.

 _Not the greatest re-introduction in the world,_ he thought.

"... I should probably just let _you_ answer the door, huh?"

"That would the best course of action, yes," Isis droned, and she pointed down the hallway. "Go to the kitchen, both of you."

Malik didn't want to mull over the many implications that order entailed. They hid without argument, but peered around the corner when Isis turned to unlock the door.

When the entrance parted, she leaned her shoulder against the frame and cocked a brow.

"Faruq!" Isis regarded the tall man before her, eyes bright with the tone as she observed the other men. "Ali, Hadar! I take it Khaled stayed with the car? So all four of you have conspired to kidnap me, then? And after everything we've been through? I hope there's at least a snack for me in the car. I haven't had breakfast."

"We have missed you terribly, Chief," Faruq rumbled, eyes shining with a grin.

Rishid raised his brows as Malik furrowed his.

 _Chief_?

"We know it was per your orders, but we still worried about leaving you alone during the tournament. After what you had said, what you were trying to do, we weren't sure if you were going to–"

"It worked out," Isis relayed with a small smile and the wave of her hand. "Do forgive my brothers. Contrary to your previous engagements with them, they do have my best interests in mind."

"It is not our place to judge, Chief," spoke a guard from behind, Hadar, a clean shaven man with a squared face and thick jaw. Malik squinted and tried to remember if that was the one Isis was talking about.

"I wasn't expecting you all so early," Isis said. "What's the occasion? Did traffic get worse in my time away?"

"When we got news you touched ground in country, we wanted to give you a proper welcome back," Ali, a wiry guard with a thin English mustache and pale complexion, replied with a sly smirk. "We're early for a reason. Your favorite cafe on Kasr El Ainy has a special cup of coffee waiting for you."

"It is the first time I've seen you all since I've been back, and the first thing you do is lie to me. It doesn't wait when it's made to order."

If any other person in the world had tapped the guard with their knuckles the way Isis had to the man's chest, Malik was sure their fingers would have been broken before they made contact. However, it seemed Isis had enough familiarity to get away with it intact, and the man hummed good-naturedly. He made a sweeping motion with his arms in a presenting gesture to the path behind him with a bow of his head.

"So are you coming with us or not, Miss Ishtar?"

"'Miss Ishtar,' is it? Well, now I know you're all up to no good if _you_ are the one using formalities with me," Isis teased. "Give me a moment to say goodbye to my brothers."

"Of course, Chief," Faruq bowed with his hand over his heart. The other two followed suit.

Malik and Rishid quickly ducked their heads back into the kitchen as Isis made her way over to them.

"I'm sorry I have to leave so soon," Isis stretched out her arms and hooked her hands behind their torsos, bringing them to her for a hug, "but there is a lot of work that needs to be done. Much has happened here in my absence."

"Don't worry about it, sister," Malik assured, returning the embrace and digging his chin into her shoulder while Rishid moved his jaw to the top of her head. "We'll find something to keep ourselves busy. We promise the kitchen won't be up in flame when you return."

With a chuckle and a kiss to both of their cheeks, Isis waved them goodbye with her exit as the guards moved to flank her. When the door closed behind them, Malik and Rishid took the opportunity to look out of the window at the other end of the living room. They beheld a view of the complex's gated oasis entrance, and there was a prominent black SUV with government plates parked out front. They couldn't hear what was being said, but the body language spoke for itself as they surrounded her in a triangular pattern, two in front and the massive Persian (Faruq, was it?) behind her. The pasty guy with the mustache (Ali?) must have said some sort of joke as he opened the vehicle's door for her, because Isis held her hand over her mouth with a laugh as she lightly pushed the man's shoulder in response.

"Stop it! You're not funny!" they saw her mouth before she hopped into the back seat.

Malik's eyes narrowed with the crossing of his arms at his chest.

 _She seems awful close to them to just be bodyguards._

Rishid, on the other hand, was quite happy to see that Isis had adequate protection for her commute, and he noticed something interesting about her posture and gait.

The stride she held among the men reminded him, quite vividly, of the swagger Malik exhibited when he had once led a squad of Ghouls.

* * *

Author's Notes: Ending Chapter 1 of 3 with Isis rolling hard with her crew. Mmm hmm.

I find it both amusing and aggravating that Isis is characterized as Malik's "mature" big sister, yet somehow fans always want to write her as someone who is naive about "adult" things like alcohol.

For her to become the Secretary General of the SCA, she had to get, at a minimum, a Bachelor's degree. As in: She's the one who attended a major university. I'm not saying she flew off the rails and channeled the spirit of Belushi a la _Animal_ _House_ , but if anyone in the YGO cast is gonna know about fermented liquid, it is going to be Isis. Lest we forget, Egypt is the birthplace of beer, and she is quite proud of her roots.

I did go back and forth about whether or not Isis would quibble about letting her 16 year old brother drink, but y'know what? In order to get into college and also have a job with the SCA, Isis probably _lied_ about her age when she filled out her papers and was probably drinking in university before she was 18. So she probably wouldn't care too much if Malik imbibed along with her.

Also, fun fact: The company that brews Stella, the national beer of Egypt, was originally under the same license in the early 1900s as the brewery that is best known for making Heineken today. Hence the title of this chapter.

So, there, that's a thing you know now.

Finally, there is one detail of which I did not embellish or speculate. Isis is indeed called "Chief" by her guards in the Japanese version and I love it! Respect her authoritah!


	2. LA BOHÉME FRANÇAISE (?)

**LA BOHÉME FRANÇAISE (?)**

One of the first changes Malik and Rishid implemented to their lives was buying several heavy duty kits to reinforce the frames of the doors and windows. Isis had said something about a lease violation when she got back later that night, but it was a small price to pay for the added security. The Stella Shotgun Special from the night before had, at least, contributed to another change in that it made room for groceries, but that in itself turned out to be a disappointment. In the midst of studying, working for the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and divining the future, Isis had developed atrocious dietary habits for the last half of the decade.

"Isis, aren't you going to eat before you go?"

"I'll pick something up on the way, Rishid!"

"You're sure? All you've had is coffe–"

Then she'd run out the door with fistfuls of folders and a leather satchel swinging from her shoulder, and they wouldn't see her until nine o'clock at night. She hadn't lied when she said workload was going to be hectic. Malik and Rishid had only seen her a handful of hours for the first three days, never staying for breakfast beyond a cup of coffee and arriving far too late to partake in dinner. Rishid tried not to worry, and Malik said nothing, though both were disconcerted with the behavior.

For as long as they had known her, Isis had always kept to herself. Though Rishid tried to balance his attention between the two when they were younger, first and foremost, his role had been to act on Malik's behalf, to watch him always. Malik grew with Rishid, thought of him as more than a servant and called him "brother." He was a rock, a pillar for the youngest Ishtar, his unwavering support and foundation.

He and Isis, as the elder siblings, shared some responsibility in looking after Malik, but Rishid reflected that he had never truly served Isis. Whereas Malik developed dependency, Isis learned to be self-sufficient. In this, the younger Ishtars were different, as Rishid tried to recall a time where Isis had asked him for anything and came up with nothing.

There were many regrets that came with the thought. Isis had done well for herself, but Rishid also knew she was very unlike Malik in that she didn't vocalize her pain. Even when she was a child, she would hide her tears and muffle her sobs when she thought she was alone in the archives, but it was wrenchingly palpable when one looked at her eyes (something Lord Ishtar rarely did, as he made it a point not to see her much at all). Was her avoidance and intermittent fasting really due to her work, or was she trying to mask her true feelings about the past several years?

Malik did not dwell on the thought as deeply as Rishid, or at least seemed not to on the surface, but the youngest Ishtar was irritated that his sister kept skipping breakfast. There was also no telling if she was eating a proper lunch and dinner from local takeout or if she was nibbling on chips from the lobby vending machine. Rishid refused to make it known that Malik would have probably developed similar habits had he not been there to make his meals for him, and he would continue to remain silent on the matter.

Rishid enjoyed cooking, anyhow.

By day four, they agreed they wanted to have the peace of mind that Isis wasn't eating something with a label like "B5". They tried to drop off a homemade lunch at the Supreme Council's main building downtown, but found themselves stopped at the entrance and turned away for not having badge access. Evidently, Malik proclaiming "She's my sister. Isn't it _obvious_ we're related?" and pointing to his face was not a viable tactic in infiltrating a government building.

Leave it to Isis to carve a nook for herself in an environment rife with aberrant rules and civil tedium. Fortunately, she had the mind to meet them outside and retrieve the homemade meal when she got word from security (Malik was _very_ persistent). Though her lunch break was quickly nearing its end and she wouldn't have time to eat with them, she did have some good news. She had a difficult time relaying the information, however, without being interrupted every few seconds by passing personnel.

"I'm grateful you came all this way to deliver lun–"

"Good afternoon, Secretary General."

"Thank you, good afternoon. As I was saying, brothers, thank you for–"

"Hello, Secretary General."

"Yes, hello. Thank you. My brothers, I know you came all this way and–"

"Good day, Chief."

"Yes, good day. Malik, Rishid, if you'd like to, you can–"

"Hello, Miss Ishtar."

" _Hello_ ," Isis smiled, though there was a strain to the expression and Malik registered a minute twitch to her eye as the person passed.

"Um, sister, is now a bad time?"

"No, little brother, it's not the time. It's the pl–"

"Good afternoon, Chief."

"Good afternoon!" Isis snapped with another forced smile. "My brothers, let us get away from the _entrance_ of the building, otherwise–"

"You're looking radiant as ever, Secretary General."

"I'm still assigning you to the maintenance project this weekend, Mohamed."

"Damn it."

Isis rolled her eyes as the man's posture slumped. Her brothers jerked their brows as she grabbed them by the arms and led them to the side of the building. She had to return several more greetings on the walk over, and Malik realized everyone was not acknowledging his sister out of friendliness, but out of professional courtesy for her position. At last, off in the shadows of the building, away from the eyes of any and all who recognized her, she told them they could visit her in her office at the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities the following day without any hassle. She had wanted to say more, but one glance to her watch changed the decision.

"Xara!" she swore ( _Shit_!), and Malik bristled. His sister wasn't the kind of person who used that terrible word...

He also didn't know where Isis found the space to breathe with what she said after.

"There's a board meeting in five minutes and I have to take over the presentation for the Minister of Culture in addition to my own. She couldn't be here today, something about scheduling conflicts and business in Sudan. I barely had time to review her notes before I got word. What a mess! I can't be late. I have to go. Love you both. I'll see you when I get home!"

Without waiting for reply or taking a visible breath, Isis kissed their cheeks and swiped her lunch from Rishid's hands before she dashed back into the building.

\- 0 – 0 – 0 -

Malik hadn't realized how heavily he had relied on the powers of the Rod until he faced the restrictions of the Council building (they still didn't let him back in even after everyone saw him speaking with Isis). The lack of freedom —or rather, the lack of control over others— was as stifling as it was sobering. It was another change, another mental adjustment, another new thing to get used to in the light of polite society while they made plans to integrate the Gravekeeper network above ground.

One thing that would never change, however, was the thrill of riding Lady Death. She was stunning, one-of-a-kind, and never failed to bring a smile to his face. A mechanical marvel and the light of his life, an old Harley Davidson Sportster he built with his own hands. She could be temperamental at times (it only took 11 times to kick start her to life that day) and may have been running a little rich since leaving the shores of Japan, but she always performed beautifully.

Rishid would have been pulling up alongside him in front of the museum, but the oldest Ishtar had to stay behind with the Ural. They were hoping they could convince Isis to take a ride with them for a brief stint during her lunch break, but the first gear needed to be replaced on the motorcycle and the sidecar needed a new set of tires.

They also remembered the last time Isis saw the Ural in front of the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, they blew out a window and took a sizable chunk out of the brick wall in front of the courtyard. So perhaps it had been best the Ural stayed behind. It was only unfortunate Rishid had to stay with it.

After Malik flashed the member's pass Isis had given him and nudged his way through the flurry of tourists, he made his way up the stairs. The administrative hallway was not difficult to find and Malik encountered Isis' suited cordon along with a sign hovering above a thick chain: "RESTRICTED ACCESS: MUSEUM PERSONNEL ONLY". He held up a white plastic bag with an uneasy grin.

"Ah, I'm here to have lunch with Isis. She's my sister, but, of course, you already know that, because we already met... Sorry for slamming the door in your faces the other day."

Malik internally swore as the guards regarded him coolly, silently, saying nothing at first. Damn it, why did it have to be Faruq and Hadar? Why of all days did Isis have to assign the huge Persian and the one he had mind-controlled to guard the hallway?

"Of course," Faruq finally said, and Malik hated how small he felt when the man spoke. It was always as though the earth beneath him trembled. "She told us to expect you. This way."

They unhooked the chain, acknowledging him with no more than a curt nod and allowed him to pass through. Malik avoided eye contact as he strode by them, and he still couldn't say whether or not they remembered him from darker days. Yet he also couldn't shake the feeling of daggers prodding into his back as he walked away.

His steps softly echoed in the hall, black biker boots thudding against the floor. Everything about the interior was pristine, immaculate, tidy white walls and polished white floors among portraits of officials and contributors from eras past. He noted his sister was one of the few women among them, as well as the only native designation among the likes of Mary Brodrick, Dorothy Eady, Hilda Petrie, and Margaret Murray. He came upon an alcove and lavender eyes traced over the name on a golden placard beside a door, engraved in flowing Arabic above and a smooth serif type in English below: "SECRETARY GENERAL ISIS ISHTAR".

"Kind of a big deal, huh, sister?" Malik muttered to himself. All this pomp to spoil herself in atmosphere, yet she couldn't be bothered to give herself a proper meal. He was going to fix that.

He was mildly surprised to see the door was left ajar, and wondered if it was done out of preparation for his arrival. He reached for the wood and almost pushed it open, but stopped mid-extension when he heard talking. Subconsciously, he crouched and peaked around the edge of the frame, not wanting to reveal himself just yet.

Sunlight filtered below the Roman shades and framed Isis as she sat in a large, saddle-brown leather chair behind a gargantuan desk that looked as though it would have taken ten men to push it over several meters. The walls were lined with her credentials, exhibition posters, bulletin boards, and an occasional wall scroll of papyrus. She laughed lightly as she scrawled on the paper in front of her, manila folders and piles of documentation stacked in a way that only made sense to her. Malik saw that pasty guard with the mustache, Ali, leaning on the edge of her desk and over her shoulder, pestering her about something.

Malik's eyes sharpened. Of all the guards, Faruq may have been the scariest, and Hadar may have made him feel the most awkward, (he didn't know what to think of Khaled— that guy had stayed behind in the SUV that day) but Ali was the one who irritated him the most. The man was a little too buddy-buddy with his sister, and though he wasn't nearly old enough to be their father, there was enough of an age discrepancy between them to cause some alarm.

He supposed he couldn't blame Isis too much for developing some sort of connection. Malik had Rishid to talk to all that time ago; Isis was left to herself and the Torque. She was empathetic, compassionate by default, so it was only natural she formed a bond with people who frequented her space, especially someone with the duty of a personally assigned guard. Such a thing could not only be understood, but begrudgingly accepted. Despite this reasoning, it didn't excuse the other man for taking advantage of his sister in such a delicate time.

At least, that's what Malik had surmised.

"So you're heading all the way out to Dendera this weekend? That's quite a trip when you've just gotten back," Ali whistled. "You're supposed to be there for three days, right? Couldn't you have gotten someone else to take your place?"

"It's no trouble," Isis assured, half-heartedly focused on the sheet in front of her. "I could have sent a replacement, but I've not been to a site in a long while. Truth be told, I'd much prefer to see endless sand and sky as opposed to endless paperwork. I am overdue for some fresh air." She punctuated the statement with the flourish of her signature and hummed in contentment as she capped the pen.

Malik frowned. So she was going to work over the weekend as well?

"How will your brothers feel about that?" Ali said, as though reading Malik's mind on the other side of the door. "I know your relationship with them over the past several years was... strained."

"If I had delayed any of my work this week, I would not see them for a month," Isis sighed, reclining in her chair and rolling the pen between her fingertips. "There's a reason I've been staying past office hours to get it all completed. All that remains is the maintenance project. Once Dendera is through, I'll be done playing catch up and I can focus on my family."

Malik exhaled and closed his eyes, leaning away from the door and resting his back against the wall. So the past week wasn't done out of avoidance or self-neglect after all. Isis had a plan.

 _Of_ _course_ she had a plan. For as long as he's known her, she always had a plan, always had to be one step ahead. Nothing was ever spontaneous with Isis. It was no wonder she had been chosen by the Torque. It had been practically crafted for her in that aspect, and he wondered then if Isis felt an odd emptiness as he did at the loss of an Item.

"So how has all that been?" Ali asked. "How do they affect your routine?"

"My 'routine'?" Isis repeated. Though Malik couldn't see her, it sounded as though she was chewing on the end of her pen and raising a brow. "Waking up each morning and wondering if the world is going to collapse on my head?"

Ali made a gargled sound in response and Malik couldn't help but smirk.

 _Take that, you nosy bastard._

"I-I'm sorry, Chief, I didn't mean to–"

"At ease, Ali. I know what you were trying to say," Isis soothed, much to Malik's disappointment. "I still don't know how it's all going to work out myself... I suppose, after Dendera, we'll sit down and talk about that. I have no problem putting a down payment on a place of their own, but I do not know if they will accept it from me."

Malik bit his lip at the words.

 _You're too perceptive sometimes, sister._

"I will worry about it more when the time comes," Isis continued. "For now, I worry about logistics. Have you all drawn straws on who is going to take me to fetch Dakar tomorrow?"

Malik's eyes bulged.

 _Dakar?!_

 _Who_ the hell was _Dakar_?

"Draw straws? You make it sound like it's a chore driving you around," the guard laughed. "Faruq volunteered himself. I'm surprised, though."

"Hm?"

"That it took you a week to get around to Dakar. I know you had a lot on your mind with getting your brothers situated, but I'm so used to seeing you two together, it's a little shocking to me that you didn't head off to get him the moment you got off the boat."

If the processing ability of Malik's brain had been powered by a gerbil, the poor little creature would have gotten a foot stuck in its wheel and the momentum would have snapped off its leg.

The good news was that Isis had absolutely no eyes for her old, pasty-faced bodyguard with the villainous English mustache. Jolly good!

The bad news was that Isis had, in fact, found someone during the most susceptible period in her life.

The worse news was that Isis was planning on linking up with him tomorrow morning, and that the fool's name was _Dakar_. Why would Isis have anything to do with a man named _Dakar_? Just what the hell kind of parents name their kid _Dakar_ in the first place?

There was no way the guy was Egyptian with a name like that, and from what Malik gathered during the Stella Shotgun Extravaganza their first night back, Isis' tastes in men were more... _international_. Ugh, damn that Aussie/British/Hungarian/American bastard.

 _Dakar_. Malik knew it was a city in Senegal, so the name was right up there with people who thought they were being clever when they gave their kids names like "Florence" or "Paris."

A shiver ran up and down his spine. Paris, France. With a pretentious name like _Dakar,_ there was no doubt in Malik's mind the guy was French, probably some bohemian idiot who droned on about how enlightened he was compared to his countrymen while he fetishized young Egyptian co-eds, strumming on an acoustic guitar and making eyes at his sister over a glass of cheap wine. They had to have met in college.

"I haven't had a chance to properly introduce him," she laughed. "He needs to be cleaned up a bit before he's anywhere near presentable. We wouldn't want to make a bad first impression."

Malik almost dropped the bag with their lunch.

So not only was the guy a pretentious French bohemian, but he was a literal dirt bag who lacked basic hygiene etiquette.

 _Sister, I thought better of your tastes._

"You mean an _honest_ impression?" the guard teased. "You're pretty rough with him on a regular basis."

Malik cringed at the implication. He _really_ didn't need to know that about his sister, but he found that he also wasn't that shocked at the discovery. He knew she would never admit it, but out of the two of them, Isis was the one who had inherited the stuffy authoritative streak from their father. He shuddered when the image of Isis with a whip crossed his mind before another disturbing thought blotted it out of view.

The picture of this wretched Dakar person got bigger: a dirty, pretentious French bohemian with a penchant for pain. Blegh.

"The last trip was the roughest you'd been on him," Ali continued. "That vacation from Tunisia to Armenia was a pretty long time."

Malik grasped his chin in his hand as his brow twitched. So this Dakar guy took his sister on a long vacation? Was he loaded? Surely, that wasn't something Isis would have cared about, but...

"Dakar handled it fine. We only hit one rough patch in Jordan and the rest went smoothly from there. That was the only time I had to go over my budget for the entire trip."

Malik clasped his hand over his mouth in disgust. This Dakar guy wasn't the one who was loaded. He was _using_ his sister and her stable government salary!

 _That dirty, cheap French bastard!_

"So Faruq will drop you off to get him?"

"That's the plan," Isis confirmed. "Then it's straight to Dendera."

Malik's fist curled around the handle of the plastic bag in a death grip, shaking as he did so. His sister was not only dating a dirty, cheap, perverted French _bastard_ , but she was going to meet up with him _in_ _secret_ and take him with her to hang out for the weekend. Was he also an archaeologist? Maybe even a co-worker? Malik couldn't imagine any other reason Isis would be able to take him with her when he knew the site would be restricted.

"Accommodations have been arranged in Qena, but I think I'll camp out a little further. After all the time spent in Japan, it'd be nice to get reacquainted with the desert roads in Hurghada. Maybe swing by El-Mahmya before heading back home, if there's time. I haven't been to the beach in ages."

A flash of red crossed Malik's vision, fire spreading from his chest to his face, pulsing in his temples. Isis didn't want to spend the weekend working. She wanted to spend it away from her family, away from _him_ , all so she could go on a damned _date_ with a guy who couldn't possibly begin to understand her suffering. Malik had half a mind to slam the door open and tell Isis to cancel her plans, that he cared more for her than some idiot she met in college, that this Dakar guy wasn't worth her time, that she deserved better, and that they would live happily in the light without it being obscured by some jerk who took advantage of her loneliness when her brothers weren't there to support her.

… Weren't there to support her.

Malik wanted to punch the wall, but instead took a deep breath and rolled the back of his head against it, looking to the ceiling with glassy eyes.

When they had left Isis in the tomb, it was partially done out of conflict of interest. Isis was loyal to the Pharaoh, and Malik was decidedly not so. She wasn't going to come with them even if he had asked, so he didn't.

The other reason they left after the death of their father was because Malik had no doubt in his mind that Isis would be perfectly fine on her own.

He had remembered teasing Isis when they were little, mocking her about how she acted like she knew everything. Isis didn't know everything, but she knew what she needed to know, _wanted_ to know, and if there was something she did not know, then she always took it upon herself to learn so she would know. His sister was smart. She was resourceful; she was self-sufficient; she was stubborn; she was independent; she didn't need their help.

Malik needed Rishid in order to survive, to thrive, for his plan to succeed, but Isis never needed them. Malik knew that if Isis wanted something to happen, then she would do what she needed to make it so. She always had that power. She always had that strength. His sister was a fighter, and he knew she would fight anyone who opposed her just as strongly as she fought against him in his quest to topple the Pharaoh. Left with the Millennium Torque in her care, she alone was the only formidable foe in his way, for Isis did not fold to the whims of another. His sister was not fragile by any means.

That was what he had thought in those years, and Malik learned that he knew nothing.

When Isis faced off against Seto Kaiba during the quarter-finals, when she had moved Rishid to safety on the blimp (a difficult task as the man weighed as much as a sack of bricks), when she watched that final duel on Alcatraz, when she greeted him with open arms and a happy heart after everything that had happened, Malik thought there was no greater name for her than Isis Ishtar. A normal woman would have broken under the pressure, the horrors of those times. Yet Isis stood, indomitable, unwavering, indestructible, and he couldn't be prouder; _that_ was _his_ _sister_.

Yet it wasn't.

It was on the boat ride back home that he saw the marble crack and crumble before him, revealing not an invincible god of light, but a woman who had covered herself with layers of strings and steel to hide the pain underneath. When his sister broke down and cried in his embrace, saying how lonely she had been, how close she came to losing _everything_ , Malik buried his face in her hair and shed tears, for it was then he learned there was a hideous fault in his belief. Malik thought after the terrors of Battle City and Alcatraz, he had no innocence left to lose. Isis had proven him wrong, for as she shook and sobbed, feeling so small and delicate in his arms, Malik had to accept the final realization, the terrible reality.

His big sister was only human.

They hurt her when they abandoned her.

They hurt her when they stole the Gods.

 _They hurt her._

And they weren't there for her.

That Dakar guy was.

 _Damn it._

Everything Isis had done for the past five years was so she could build a better life for her family. Even after everything they did— _he_ did, she still made a place for them in a home she made for herself beyond the tombs. Malik didn't know who the hell this Dakar guy was, and he already didn't like him, but he wasn't going to demand his sister dump someone for his comfort if she had found a person who had made her happy in those dark times.

It would be up to Isis to decide when she was ready to introduce the jerk to them, and he would grit his teeth and bear it when the time came. He wasn't going to force his sister to deconstruct the life she built in order for her to be a part of his.

With another deep breath and a hand through his hair, Malik chiseled the biggest smile he could muster and pushed the door open.

"Sister, I brought lunch!"

\- 0 – 0 – 0 -

"Thank you for lunch again, little brother. I appreciate it."

"No problem, sister."

They embraced in the museum courtyard out front, surrounded by date trees and statues from the Middle Kingdom, before Malik broke off the hug.

"Are you going to be spending a long day here?"

"Not as long as I have been. I shall make it for dinner tonight," Isis confirmed. "I'm sorry I'll be spending the weekend away, but I promise, once it's finished, we'll have more time together."

Malik maintained his smile through the ailment in his stomach, one of which had nothing to do with what they just ate.

 _Time split between your brothers and boyfriend..._

He retained his shudder. His nerves would be better settled on Lady Death.

With the thought, his eyes brightened.

"Hey, sister," Malik began, excitedly grabbing her wrist and pulling her over to his motorcycle. "Do you plan on carpooling with your guards again?"

"Yes, brother. Why?" she asked with a suspicious brow. Why did Malik look so enthused all of a sudden?

"Want a change in pace?" he grinned, releasing her arm. "You could give your guards a break and I can take over transportation duty for the afternoon."

He fanned his arms across his motorcycle, a flourish to his fingertips with the grandiose posturing. Isis' eyes trailed along the polished chrome and swooping red curves of the Harley Davidson, blinking rapidly as she did so.

"Malik, are you proposing to come back and pick me up on Lady Death?"

"Why not?" Malik asked with a hapless shrug. "Her suspension can handle two-up on the streets, no problem!"

Isis subconsciously shrank back from the 1200cc machine and turned her shoulder to her brother.

"That's a very kind of you, brother, but I think I'll pass."

"Ah, c'mon, sister, it'll be fun!" Malik urged. "She's really well balanced. You won't even need to lean with me that much, and it's not like we live that far from here! It's not a long ride at all!"

"I know what you're trying to do, Malik, and I'm touched you want to share the experience with me, but–"

"I promise I won't ride like a hooligan. No filtering or wheelies or anything, I promise!" Malik held his hand up beside his head, as though giving an oath. "Really, sister, I mean it. I'll ride like grandma the whole way."

"In Cairo's rush hour traffic?" she said, crossing her arms and arching a brow. "We will surely perish, then."

Malik's posture folded under the quip. He was about to retort, but thought better when his eyes went to his white half-helmet hanging from Lady Death's handlebar.

"Is safety the issue?" Malik asked, and before Isis could answer, he swiped the brain bucket between his hands and presented it to her.

"It might be a little but loose, but you can wear my helmet if you want!"

"NO!" Isis refused, thrusting her hands forward and pushing the helmet into Malik's chest. He gripped the polycarbonate shell and frowned with a saddened stare.

"Sister, I just–"

"I know you're trying to be nice, Malik, but don't be stupid!" she scolded. "You don't wear enough gear as it is! Keep your helmet for your own safety! It's the least you can do for yourself! After everything we've been through, I won't risk having a dead squid for a brother!"

Malik opened his mouth to respond, but his jaw tensed and his eyes bulged when he processed what came out of his sister's mouth.

 _No, there's_ no way _she just said..._

" _Isis_ ," Malik said slowly with a sideways glance, craning his neck forward with a suspicious, upturned lip. "Did you just call me a _squid_?"

Instead of shrinking under his intense stare, she stood her ground and sighed.

"You'd be better off than most if you wore your helmet," she admonished.

"Where did you learn that word?" Malik pressed, drumming his fingers against the white polycarbonate shell. "That's not archaeology slang."

It wasn't even Egyptian slang, for that matter.

"I've picked up many things over the years, Malik," Isis intoned with a small smile. "Is it so wayward to know? Don't forget who told you what a motorcycle was in the first place."

His stare weakened upon hearing the statement, a sour taste in his mouth as his hands lowered at his sides with a shrug in defeat. With all the reading his sister did, she probably saw it in an article and never forgot it.

"All right, sister, you got me," he groaned. "So you'll be carpooling back with the boys, then?"

"'The boys,' are they?" Isis said with a smirk of her own as Malik placed his helmet on his head, adjusting the D-rings on the straps to his chin. "They'll be amused when I tell them that."

"Please, don't. They hate me enough as is," Malik muttered, placing his key in its slot on the dash and mounting Lady Death, priming the engine.

 _Please, girl, don't take 11 kicks this time._

"They don't hate you," Isis crooned. "They knew what the situation was back then, Malik. It's been forgiven."

"Uh huh," Malik replied.

"Really," Isis insisted. "If there was any resentment for what happened, you and Rishid would not be the only ones on the receiving end of it. They would have quit working for me long ago if they were the type to hold grudges."

Malik grunted again, some of it due to disbelief, and the other half due to Lady Death taking more than three kicks to start.

 _C'mon, number four..._

"Honestly, Malik," Isis continued. "You don't need to feel so uneasy around them. They know you and Rishid are trying to start over again. The effort is acknowledged."

Malik grunted once more. Attempts four and five failed, and he doubted the guards so much as forgave him. Just because an effort was acknowledged didn't mean it was accepted. They just weren't saying anything on the contrary for Isis' sake.

They admired her.

They detested him.

That's all there was to it.

Then there was the annoying matter of _Dakar_.

With a growl, Lady Death roared to life on the sixth kick.

 _Yes!_

"We can talk about it at dinner!" Malik shouted over the chugging engine noise of Lady Death, holding his right arm out to Isis and bringing her in for a hug. She sighed and gave him a quick peck on the cheek before stepping back.

"Be safe," she uttered with a wave.

"Later, sister!" He saluted before putting the kickstand up with his ankle and rolling on the throttle. Lady Death tore away from the museum courtyard with a thunderous "BRAAAAAAAP!", shaking the ground and startling the surrounding tourists while earning annoyed glances from locals. Malik, however, savored the sweet sound and vibrations as he disappeared from Isis' view.

She stood in the shadow of a date palm tree, noting the time as Malik became a spec in her vision. Isis carefully tracked the ticking hand on her watch, still hearing the revs of Lady Death in the distance, and she grimaced.

 _15 seconds?_

* * *

Author's Notes: Lady Death is actually based off the Honda Shadow VLX in the manga, buuuuut I like the idea of Malik struggling with a kick-start on a cruiser, so I changed her to an older model Harley Davidson Sportster. The HD image fits Malik better anyhow, methinks.

On the next and final installment, we get to meet Dakar, and he's not at all what Malik thinks. I'll give you all a hint: He's not French; he's Japanese. ;)


	3. FROM PARIS TO CAIRO

Author's Notes: Many Levantine foods are listed at the beginning of this chapter. I won't go into too much detail about all of them here since I know you are all a most clever lot well versed in the art of the search engine, but I will take the time to explain that a _meze_ is a lovely appetizer spread that is intended to be enjoyed with alcoholic drinks. Think of it as the Mediterranean/Middle Eastern version of wine and tapas.

* * *

 **FROM PARIS TO CAIRO**

Her favorite restaurant in 6th of October could not compare to what Rishid had cooked when she came home.

Isis' eyes went alight at the sight and smell of the spectacular _meze_ , an array of bowls arranged in a methodical circle on the table: verdant jade of finely chopped vegetables in the tabbouleh, brilliant red of the sun dried tomatoes mixed with couscous, soft tans of the baba ganoush and hummus speckled with paprika and drizzled with olive oil, deep sepia tones of falafel and duqqa, minty hue of the besarah dip, deep olive of the tightly rolled grape leaves, off-white circles of baladi bread with tawny dapples across the surface, shining black Koshary tea cradled by three white cups, and the unmistakeable, muted amber color of the Stella in tall glasses.

"If I had known you two were eating like this every night, I would have left work earlier!"

Isis marveled at each dish as she took her seat. She didn't know where to begin, and Rishid took the initiative to hand her a plate with baladi bread and stuffed grape leaves to start. Her senses melted as the warmth of the Egyptian flat bread spread through her fingertips when she broke off a piece to dip into the besarah, and Rishid beamed as she took her fill. For the past week, he had been doing simple variations on koshari and ful, but when Malik had come home and confirmed Isis was going to make it on time, he wasted no time in preparing the spread.

They still also needed to cut down on the Stella, so a _meze_ was incredibly appropriate for the occasion.

The conversation began and carried smoothly in the beginning, starting with Isis gushing over Rishid's cooking and telling them about her day. Rishid was quite receptive to the information and provided ample feedback, but Malik remained uncharacteristically subdued throughout the meal, only lifting his attention from his plate to utter "hmm" or "uh huh" before he stuffed a serving of couscous or falafel in his mouth. It wasn't done so much out of appreciation for Rishid's cooking (though it certainly helped the oldest Ishtar was quite talented with his culinary skills), but more so Malik could avoid putting his foot in his mouth. Ever since he left the museum, all he could think about was Isis' secret weekend getaway.

Rishid had gotten an earful during the meal prep, having listened to three hours of Malik passing ingredients and stalking in and out of the kitchen screaming "WHY?" to the ceiling with his hands over his eyes, then another two hours consoling and reassuring Malik that he was right in not confronting Isis about the matter. He agreed in that their sister needed to reveal it on her own terms, when she was ready, but Malik kept second-guessing the decision, the image of this stranger, this _fool_ named Dakar, clinging to the front of his mind and spoiling his dinner with his family. The alcohol wasn't helping in the way he had wanted it to, either. With the amount of salt and olive oil that was placed in every other dish, the Stella was going down like water, but the image of the filthy Frenchman putting hands on his sister wouldn't go away.

Rishid noticed and replaced the Stella with a glass of water while urging Malik to have some more tea. There was a fire brimming behind the lavender eyes, a familiar sight to the oldest Ishtar, and Rishid would do what he could to ensure that fire was contained. Isis was recovering from a long work week, and it was going to be even longer with the trip to Dendera that awaited her tomorrow morning. Lover or no, it was still going to be a six hour drive to the site, and that would have been _without_ stopping.

"That is quite a trip," Rishid commented. "It will take up more than a quarter of your day just traveling there."

"I know it's a long haul, but this project has been delayed for half a year due to budget constraints," Isis reasoned. She took a bite of a stuffed grape leaf, savoring the spicy rice blend inside and enjoying the tangy aftertaste from the juice of the leaf itself, chasing it with a sip of Stella.

"It needs to be done," she said, and Malik tried not to glower.

 _This guy must be something else to have her so willing to stay cooped up in a car with him for six hours._

Then Malik hid his grimace behind his tea cup. Was he driving her, or were they being escorted? The sudden thought of his sister having relations in the back seat while the scary Persian ignored them made it difficult for Malik to swallow his tea. It was supposed to be sweet, but everything he had been drinking just left a sour aftertaste in his mouth.

"But it's not an excavation. It's maintenance work, correct?" Rishid asked, pouring more tea for Malik and heaping more baladi bread on the young Egyptian's plate, hoping the starch would combat the effects of the Stella.

"What makes it so the Secretary General is needed to oversee it in person?"

"How best to explain it?" Isis uttered, breaking off another piece of her own flat bread and dipping it into the duqqa. "Dendera is well preserved, but like anything else, there is upkeep involved. How intense the project is, well... Think of it like taking care of a motorcycle."

This piqued both of the men's interests, Rishid out of intrigue and Malik out of confusion. Why would Isis compare ancient site restoration to motorcycles?

"To give you an idea of what's going on, there are different levels to maintaining temples and monuments. First, you have casual maintenance, something comparable to an oil change, adjusting a chain, or swapping out tires. At that level, the project isn't terribly difficult, so it's unlikely for there to be a need for the presence of higher expertise."

Rishid nodded and Malik squinted, taking a slow bite out of the couscous as he did so.

"Then you have projects on the other end of the spectrum, like what was done with Abu Simbel back in the late 60s. Something like that is comparable with a total engine rebuild."

Malik wondered if he drank too much Stella again. How bored had his sister been in the past five years to sit down and read a mechanical maintenance manual?

"The Dendera project is somewhere in between," Isis said, refreshing her palate with the chopped vegetables in the tabbouleh before helping herself to a falafel. "The difficulty is comparable to, say, adjusting valves."

Malik and Rishid grimaced at the comparison.

"Tedious," Rishid said.

"Pain in the ass," said Malik.

Isis nodded at both.

"That's why I'm needed to oversee the project, but _I_ only have to be there for three days. Rank has its privileges," Isis shrugged with a small smile. "I live not in envy of our interns."

"What are the accommodations?" Rishid inquired. "Will you be camping out or crossing the Nile into the city?"

"Reservations were made for myself and other board members with a hotel in Qena, but truth be told, I think I'll be camping out with the rest of the staff," Isis crooned. "The stars are beautiful, and I want to explore beyond the Temple Complex."

The tea did nothing to soothe Malik's stomach or his nerves. He gnawed purposefully on his baladi bread, barely registering the rich notes with the creamy eggplant of the baba ganoush he had slathered on the surface as opposed to dipping it. He could see it all. His sister taking a moonlit walk in the sand, hand-in-hand with that Dakar guy. They'd come upon the Temple of Isis and that idiot would probably point to the statues and whisper something dumb in his sister's ear about how they _almost_ caught her likeness.

Malik dipped another serving of flat bread into the besarah and tried to linger on the fresh herbs with little success. His imagination interrupted his taste buds while Isis and Rishid continued speaking about the project and what she planned to do with the time when she wasn't working, and what they all would do once she got back.

 _A balancing act,_ Malik thought.

He imagined Isis trying to explain to _Dakar_ that things would have to be different between them, that she had her family to think about, because Isis _always_ put her family first, and that their meetings would have to be planned out well in advance because she'd be worried about how her brothers would react after everything that's happened between them, and they would probably see him as an "intruder" on their life. If that Dakar guy wasn't half as stupid as Malik supposed he was, _maybe_ he would understand, and if he wasn't a _total_ dirt bag (or perhaps he wasn't one at all if he stayed with Isis through those troubling times), he'd agree to wait for the time when his sister would feel comfortable introducing them.

… or maybe that Dakar bastard would be fed up with Isis' secret rendezvous, feeling as though she was ashamed of him when she was really worried about making things easy for her brothers, and that he was tired of taking second place in her life. Maybe he would reach his limits, enraged that they had to drive six hours out of the city to ensure her brothers wouldn't find out, cut his losses, dump his sister on their romantic moonlit walk among the temples, leave her to cry at the foot of her namesake, and she would come back to Cairo with a chunk taken out of her heart. Isis would smile and say she had a nice trip, and Malik would hear her sob into her pillow at night. This would happen because his sister never got the chance to tell them about him, and because Isis had always suffered in silence.

Aside from the confession on the boat, Isis _never_ showed weakness. She never complained, never made her problems known, and Malik would have to watch her guilty conscience and broken heart eat away at her while she masked it with a smile.

The same smile she wore when they were children.

The same smile she wore when their father lost his temper.

The same smile she wore under her palm to hide the mark on her cheek.

The same smile she wore when she swallowed blood and told him "I'm fine."

The same smile that always made Malik sick.

 _She's not going to suffer because of me._

Malik reached over for Rishid's Stella (he was still on his first drink), downed it in three gulps, and slammed the glass on the table, bolting up with a quickness.

"SISTER, YOU DON'T NEED TO HIDE HIM FROM US! WE KNOW!"

Rishid and Isis stared at him for several seconds, jaws slack and brows knitted as the table shook. The steam from Rishid's tea wafted underneath his nose, lips settled on the rim as he was mid-sip when Malik made the announcement. Isis had been about to take a bite out of a stuffed grape leaf and her teeth stalled around the morsel. When both Ishtars had processed what was said, Rishid sighed and pinched his brow, scolding himself internally for his gross negligence. He had been so absorbed conversing with Isis that he failed to detect the haze over Malik's eyes, the fire wildly spreading before him. All Rishid could do now was step back and let it burn out.

Isis, meanwhile, took the rolled grape leaf away from her mouth and held it just above her plate, blinking twice with pursed lips.

"Hiding who?" Isis asked. Rishid coughed uncomfortably into his hand and winced while Malik forced his shoulders back and stiffened his chin with his posture.

"We know about Dakar, sister," Malik said, fists flexing at his hips, a nervous tick. "I heard it all in your office today when you were talking with your guard, Ali."

The grape leaf still remained pinched between her fingertips as her brows arched in surprise.

"Oh, you heard all that? Then I suppose it's all right to–"

"I'm not happy about it," Malik confessed, and Rishid cringed above his tea. Isis tilted her head with a disheartened expression that wrenched Malik's gut.

"Really, now? Little brother, I would have thought–"

"He's not good enough for you!" Malik shouted, startling both Isis and Rishid with the volume. "Not after everything you've done! But..."

He gulped and tucked his chin to his chest, unable to look at Isis' eyes. He needed to have his thoughts together and forced the words out, burning his throat on the delivery.

"I don't know how much you've told this guy about us or the Gravekeepers or anything else. I just know that if this Dakar guy _really_ makes you happy, then you shouldn't feel like you need to hide him from me or Rishid. So if you're taking this trip to Dendera to save face and get away with your..." He gulped again, acid touching his esophagus and gritting his teeth with the words. "Your _boyfriend_ , you don't have to keep it a secret. We made a pact to live in the light, sister, as a _family_. None of us should be keeping things in the dark."

Rishid set his tea down and his brow relaxed, a smile coming over his scarred features. Where he was expecting a tirade, Malik had instead subdued himself and put out the fire on his terms.

 _He has come a long way since Domino._

Isis, however, had dropped her grape leaf on the plate and clasped both hands over her mouth, eyes shut tightly against her cheeks, tears forming as a muffled chirping escaped from her throat, shoulders shaking erratically with the motion.

"Sister," Malik sighed, reaching for her. "I'm sorry if that was too blunt, but I had to–"

She bent over at the waist and her raven hair cascaded around her face. Her hands moved away from her mouth and an odd sound escaped with each short breath.

"M-Malik... Y-you... you think... Dakar is..."

Isis couldn't finish the sentence and placed her fists against the table, shoulders vibrating and shaking her head in disbelief. The choked chirping sounds gained frequency as she lowered her forehead. Her brothers reached for her, worried that Malik may have taken things too far, too quickly, but both men recoiled when Isis' head shot back, one hand on her forehead while the other gripped the edge of the wood.

Tears streamed down her face and she was _howling_.

Her brothers stared at the scene, perturbed and dumbfounded. Isis wasn't crying out of shame or shock. She had fallen into complete hysteria.

"You think...?" Isis gasped as she bent her head forward again, sliding her hand from her forehead to her lips, shoulders still shaking as she snickered into her fingers. "You think _Dakar_ is my _boyfriend_?!"

"Um... well, yeah," Malik uttered with a puzzled blink. "I mean, it sounded like you were prepping for a date with all that talk of exploring desert roads and going to the beach."

"Malik, Dakar isn't a _man_ ," she wheezed, and a wave of static ran through Malik's mind.

"Dakar's not a _man_?" he repeated numbly.

" _No_ ," Isis laughed with a shake of her head. She took a deep breath and dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a napkin before setting it back into her lap, straightening her posture and fanning her face with her hands to compose herself. When she thought she could form a coherent sentence without falling into hysterics again, Isis clasped her hands together on the table and stared into her little brother's stupefied eyes.

"Dakar is–"

\- 0 – 0 – 0 -

"A MOTORCYCLE?!"

"Yes, little brother, for the thousandth time," Isis said. "Is it really so hard to believe?"

Yes, it was.

The sun had begun to break out over the horizon, the world tinged with a soft purple glow as the Ishtar family strode among the concrete buildings of the storage facility. Isis had made a call to Faruq after dinner and informed him that he would not be needed that morning, much to his disappointment. With the big secret out, Isis decided there was no point in "hiding" Dakar and allowed Rishid to transport her in the sidecar of the Ural. Malik had trailed closely behind them on Lady Death, still stunned with the news. The image did not compute, and Malik had a difficult time imagining Isis riding on or in anything with less than four wheels.

Stranger yet was seeing his sister in something other than a dress. Gone was the flowing crème cloth and jewelry, replaced by a short-sleeved khaki blouse and pants tucked into calf-length, cinnamon colored boots. Though she still had her staple brown leather satchel hanging from her shoulder with a canteen attached to the strap by a carabiner, she also held a large black duffel bag with extra clothes and supplies for her trip. The only gold his sister wore was the small belt buckle bearing the Eye of Wdjat (a custom piece?) and the buckles on the stabilizing strap for the ankle region of her boots. If she had a brown felt fedora on her head and a whip at her side, she would have been the perfect model for the next archaeological adventure film.

At the thought of a whip, Malik supposed he should have at least been happy to learn that Isis did not, in fact, have a sleazy French boyfriend with masochistic tendencies.

Still, to think of _Isis,_ his own _big_ _sister_ of all people, having a _motorcycle_...

Maybe she was using the word incorrectly. Maybe what she really meant to say was that Dakar (oh, Ra, she gave her bike a _name_ just like he named Lady Death) was not a motorcycle, per se, but a different type of vehicle on two wheels. Dakar was probably a scooter.

Yes, a scooter! That was it. It was just a slip up in terms. Sure, Isis knew about things like tightening chains and valve adjustments and engine rebuilds, and, yes, she knew what a _squid_ was, but that was all from _reading_ , not personal experience! Malik was sure when they found the storage garage that housed her motorcy— her _scooter_ , the door would lift and there would be Dakar, a cute, petite, inoffensive, metropolitan mint green Vespa.

 _Not French. Italian._

"Here we are!" Isis stopped in front of the garage and Rishid offered to take her duffel bag while she dug in her pocket for the key to the lock. "I hope you won't judge me too harshly when you see him."

Malik blinked at the words.

 _Him_. Could he really be blamed for thinking Dakar was a man when she spoke about it like that?

"We would never judge, Isis," Rishid smiled, placing his hand on Malik's shoulder. The youngest Ishtar jumped at the contact, startled out of his thoughts.

"The news was unexpected, but not unwelcome. Right, Malik?" Rishid urged politely. "It's pleasant to learn we all have something in common."

"Uh, yeah... right," Malik said, eyes looking to the ground as Isis made quick work of the lock and lifted the garage latch.

 _Please be a scooter. Please be a scooter. Please be a scooter._

All Malik could do was guard the little bubble of denial welling in his chest. Isis was the sort of person who enjoyed curling up with a thick volume about the nomadic trends of the ancient Levantines and finishing it in a day. Isis was the sort of person who enjoyed sipping a small cup of Koshary tea under an umbrella at an outdoor cafe while she quietly observed the movements of a Sufi dhikr circle on a Thursday night. Isis was the sort of person who found amusement in comparing the temple rituals of the First Egyptian Satrapy to the Second as she observed scrolls from the museum archives under a magnifying glass. Isis was a scholar, a disciple of reason, born with the essence of the divine scribe, and his smart, calculating, _cautious_ big sister was the sort of person who would have _nothing_ to do with a two-wheeled death machine!

Yes, Malik and Rishid rode motorcycles, but it was _different_ for them. It was something that came naturally. They had been agents of rebellion, going against the mold of their upbringing in the tombs and disregarding the whims of polite society above. That _wasn't_ Isis and that had never been Isis. Isis wasn't rebellious; Isis didn't go against custom; Isis did not reject the light of society. To even _suggest_ that his big sister would even _think_ of sitting above a roaring engine with two wheels and risking her hide on the streets was ludicrous!

… Yet here they were, standing in front of a storage unit so Isis could retrieve her precious _Dakar_.

The garage door rumbled as Isis excitedly pushed it up out of the way and flicked on the light, dashing Malik's expectations in an instant.

 _Damn it, that's way too big to be a Vespa._

In addition to safely keeping Dakar in a rented garage, Isis had covered the machine and had it chained to an anchor loop in the floor. There was still no telling what was underneath... but it still could have been a scooter! Not a Vespa, but perhaps one of the bigger models from Suzuki or Yamaha.

Yes, that was it.

 _Not European. Japanese._

What was sitting atop the veiled machine, however, did not put his mind at ease. Where Malik expected a white half-helmet and pilot goggles very much like his own, he saw a tan and black touring jacket folded neatly in a square, and atop the jacket rested a pair of saddle brown gauntlet gloves sporting kevlar on the palms and carbon fiber protection on the knuckles. Beside the gloves was a large, brilliant goggle lens, blended colors of yellow and red that reminded one of a sunset with a black frame and dark grey band, and Malik's heart dropped into his gut when he noted the styling.

 _Motocross_?

No.

No way.

No.

 _No_.

No, no, no, _no, no, no._

That didn't make sense.

Maybe, _maybe_ , he could picture his sister on a small 125cc standard. Heck, maybe even an older sport bike, but there's _no way_ Isis would even _know_ about–

 _Oh, come on!_

To Malik's horror, resting beside the touring jacket, gloves, and motocross-styled goggles was the unmistakable extended peak and aggressive venting of a large, white dirt bike helmet.

"Right where I left them," Isis chirped. She slipped on the vented touring jacket with a practiced ease, causing bells and whistles to fire off in Malik's head, but still, he tried to hold onto his bubble.

Isis was practical; Isis was logical; Isis was _safe_. So maybe it was overkill for a _scooter_ , but all that protective equipment was inline with her personal philosophies. It was all well and good and perfectly suited to his sister in that way, and what sort of brother would he be if he didn't support a decision that literally saved his sister's skin?

After she put on her gloves and slipped the goggles over her head to rest on her collar, she grabbed the helmet and pushed it out to Malik.

"Could you hold this for me while I get the chain and cover?"

Malik nodded simply as he clutched the helmet to his chest while Rishid beamed, quite curious and somewhat excited to see what Isis had under the veil.

 _C'mon, Suzuki Burgman,_ Malik chanted inwardly. It wouldn't be the most attractive thing on two wheels, but it would at least make some semblance of sense _._ However, Isis, and by further extension, the Fates themselves, did not want to work in a way that conformed to Malik's wishes on that particular day.

Isis slipped off the cover, and Rishid cradled his chin in his hand with an inquisitive rise of his brow while Malik lost all feeling in his mouth.

When Isis broke Gravekeeper tradition and took Malik to the surface half a decade ago, he was confident there was nothing more beautiful in creation than what he witnessed that day. The first was the sun, brilliant and encompassing, so willing to greet him, embrace him after so much time in the darkness, as though welcoming him to the waking world. The second was the clear blue sky, expansive and never ending, a wonder that was always farther than he could reach or see. Finally, the most important, the most beautiful of anything to date, what Isis had told him when he asked what he saw on the television and the picture in the magazine.

" _It's a motorcycle._ "

She had said it so quickly, so matter-of-factly, so dispassionately. How could she have used such a tone with something so gorgeous? The swooping curves of the body, the metallic ridges of the engine, the shining chrome in the sunlight, even the beefy swell of the tires, it all gripped at his heart and never let go, a passion that threatened to overtake and overwhelm him. _Lady_ _Death_ , the quintessential cruiser, his dream bike, his treasure— Malik had been convinced that there was nothing more sacred or stunning on earth than a motorcycle.

Which is why he was horrified when Isis lifted the veil.

Malik was not a fan of scooters, having no fondness for the U-shaped center or the small tires or... anything, really. To him, it was like the engineers did everything possible to ensure all the magic and dignity would be stripped from the machine. Practical as they were for the urban environment they'd been crafted for, scooters had always been, in Malik's eyes, ugly.

But what Isis had was no scooter.

It was _way_ uglier than a scooter.

 _It's a d-d-d-d–_

"A dual sport!" Rishid acknowledged with an appreciative nod, kneeling down and taking a closer look at the engine. "A single cylinder from Suzuki? A DR650, and the kick start model? I can't say I was expecting this."

"Neither was I..." Malik muttered, fingers limply gripping at his sister's helmet.

"What were you expecting, little brother?" Isis tittered, locking away her chain and cover in one of the aluminum cases on the pannier rack before swiping her helmet from his hands. "You thought I was going to ride all the way from Cairo to Dendera on a little Honda Zoomer?"

Malik bridled with a sharp inhale.

 _You're so close, it's scary, sister._

Though he hadn't been wrong about the brand in the end.

"I'm just a little surprised, is all," Malik recovered, placing his hand to the back of his neck. "I never pegged you for a biker, and then to see... _this_."

"... I suppose it is shocking, given we haven't seen each other in so long. How would you have known?" Isis said, before noticing Rishid eyeballing the accessories on the bike.

"It's not stock," he observed, pointing to the windscreen, tank, and luggage racks. "Did you do this all yourself?"

"And then some!" Isis exclaimed. "He was such a mess when I got him! He didn't even start. This was the cheapest bike on the lot and the person who had it before never did any maintenance. I sat down with a manual and took out..."

Isis' explanation faded out of Malik's ears as she excitedly told Rishid about her repairs and modifications. The platinum blonde Egyptian placed his hands in his pockets and circled the bike, biting his lip as he did so.

It was, in all respects, a motorcycle. Yet brother and sister were on totally opposite ends of the spectrum for what they considered to be a proper motorbike.

Where Malik preferred a round headlight, Isis had a blocky square set in its fairing. Whereas Malik thought tires should have been wide and moderately grippy, Isis wanted hers to be thin with knobby stippling. Where Malik would have mounted studded leather panniers, Isis had hard aluminum cases with locks. Where Malik wanted to see polished chrome and smooth, shimmering bodywork, Isis had white plastic fairings and a sun bleached tank with "DAKAR" painted on the left side, and the name was _scratched,_ as though the bike had been dropped more times than he could count on hands and feet.

Simply put, Lady Death was a sinuous work of art.

Dakar was a rugged utilitarian workhorse.

Somehow, Isis' pragmatic mindset transferred over to her vehicle preference. It wasn't a machine meant to look pretty and stand out. It was meant to take a beating and keep going. Yet Malik also saw how Isis' eyes shined as she spoke about Dakar, a smile that matched the pitch of her voice, something sweet and proud all at once, a sense of freedom that he had never heard from her.

Dakar may have been a sore sight, but he was to Isis what Lady Death was to Malik. In that, they were quite similar, and Malik couldn't find it in himself to be upset.

His sister's voice came back into focus.

"... and he goes anywhere I need him to," Isis said, brushing off the seat with one hand as she cradled her helmet with the other. She was mildly embarrassed by the small dust clouds that came off.

"Please forgive all the dirt. It was the main reason I didn't tell you right away. I was planning on washing him off after the project and pulling up to the complex."

"You take him out often?" Malik asked.

"When I do field work, yes," Isis nodded. "With Dakar, I'm not limited to the sites on the map. I can venture as far out as I please, but that's not where all this dirt is from. Before the trip to Japan, I recalled the advice of... a friend."

Isis cleared her throat and Malik could have sworn she was biting something back, an air of ambiguity to the word. _F_ _riend_?

"The future, at the time, was hazy, and there was uncertainty of what awaited after... everything I saw," Isis said consciously, and Malik bit the lining of his cheek. "So I took some time off to travel before then."

"That was the vacation from Tunisia to Armenia I overheard you talking about in your office?"

"Yes," she confirmed. "I wanted to see the historical sites of the Levant with my own eyes before undertaking the exhibition in Domino."

"You didn't want to wash off the memories?" Rishid joked.

"Something like that," Isis replied with a smile in remembrance. She was also admittedly lazy about washing it altogether when Dakar was, in essence, an overgrown dirt bike. There almost wasn't a point.

Malik wondered what had happened with Isis in those five years to motivate her to get something like Dakar. Was she like Malik, where she had seen a motorcycle ad in a magazine or something on television? Did she walk by at the opportune moment and see the possible namesake of Dakar broadcasted live on the screen? Did Isis see the famed desert rally, watching others conquer the dunes, the rocks, the wadis, and ride off into the distance? Or was Isis spurred by her sensible nature, thinking that the most logical, the most practical mode of transportation for her career would be a simple, no-nonsense thumper that could take her as far into the desert as she desired, away from the cities and off the paved paths? Before she got Dakar, did Isis imagine herself riding across the Egyptian sands and looking out over the horizon, just as he had imagined himself riding off into parts unknown on Lady Death?

Malik didn't ask. He had processed enough similarities for the day.

"I wish I could talk more, but I should probably get going. I'd like to reach Dendera before the afternoon."

She had strapped her duffel bag to the rear rack and placed her helmet over her head, securing the chin strap before stretching the sunset-toned goggles around the helmet and over her eyes. Malik found himself unnerved in that he could barely recognize her in the gear. She turned on the fuel and petcock before putting her key in the dash and got on the dual sport from left side, stepping on the peg and swinging her leg over the seat like how one would mount a horse with a saddle. Malik was immediately concerned. Isis wasn't all that tall, and her inseam was limited in that she could only put one foot on the ground if she was stopped. His disturbance grew when he remembered Dakar had a kick start.

"Ah, sister, if you want, I could–"

"It's never taken more than three tries," Isis informed with a grin. "But he's been in storage a while. Let's see..."

Rishid was entertained as he watched Malik fret over his big sister getting _her bike_ started. With a small sigh and downward thrust with her heel, Dakar refused to turn over.

"Another?" Isis asked herself, and Malik interjected again.

"Sister, I'm really, really used to it with Lady Death. Maybe I can–"

Isis sighed as she primed the engine and kicked again with no luck.

"Three? Really, now?" she asked, somewhat amused. "I guess he's mad at me for leaving him. One more..."

The youngest Ishtar was about to offer his help again, but with a final, dedicated kick of her heel, the reliable dual sport's engine growled, drowning out Malik's doubts. Isis hummed in satisfaction and leaned back in the seat, looking Malik in the eye through the broad lenses of her goggles.

"Three kicks," Isis said, and Malik wasn't sure if she was being smug or not.

Either way, he relaxed, just a bit, in seeing Isis sitting confidently atop her bike, but the image itself was still something he was trying to process completely.

"I'll leave the lock and key at the drop box out front," Isis said, kicking up her bike stand and balancing the bike on one foot. "I'll let you walk me to the exit gate before heading out."

"Sister, wait," Malik said suddenly with a hand on her shoulder. "I need to ask you something before you leave."

Rishid and Isis glanced at him quizzically, and Malik sighed. He _needed_ to know.

"Isis, why did you always carpool with your guards to work? If you've known how to ride a motorcycle this whole time, why didn't you ask if you could ride with me on Lady Death? I would have even let you take her bars if you had asked," Malik offered, suddenly uncertain of the final words.

"No, you wouldn't have," Isis said with a wry smile and a shake of her head.

"What makes you say that?" Malik asked, feeling somewhat guilty, yet more so relieved that Isis had spoken the truth for both of them.

"Because there is absolutely no way I would let you ride Dakar, so I know for a fact that you feel the same way about Lady Death," Isis stated.

Rishid chuckled at the words while Malik rubbed the back of his neck with a smirk.

"You're observant as always, sister," Malik said, "but still, I don't get it."

"Get what?"

"You looked nervous when I offered to take you on a ride yesterday. I had thought it was because you were worried about how dangerous it was, but if you ride yourself, then why did you...?"

Isis' posture gained an iota of rigidity, expressed in her shoulders as she looked away from her brothers.

"Ah, well, it's just..." she began, thankful the helmet was hiding her blush. "As you can see, brother, we have very different tastes."

"So, was it the ergos?" Malik asked, parts of his mind still disbelieving that was using biking terminology unironically with his sister. "That shouldn't matter too much if you're the passenger, though."

"Unless she doesn't like being a passenger," Rishid commented. Malik looked quickly, back and forth, between his older siblings at the realization.

"Was that it, sister? You didn't want to ride in the— Oh, Ra!" Malik gasped. No wonder Isis didn't want to be a passenger! If she was a biker too, then she knew the pillion was also called–

"That's not quite it either," Isis admitted (though it certainly was a _part_ of the reason she declined in the past, not that should would tell him that).

"So... why, then?" Malik asked.

"Malik, I think it would be best left alone for now," Rishid interjected. "I'm sure she has her reasons, but now might not be the time for it. Isis looks uncomfortable answering the question."

"But that's just it, brother. She shouldn't have to be uncomfortable talking about stuff like this with me."

 _No matter how uncomfortable I am right now learning this about her_ , Malik thought to himself.

"If we're going to live together as a family, we need to be able to communicate," Malik continued. "We've been apart so long, and we're all still getting used to each other after all that time... after everything that happened. So if we can all find some common ground, it makes sense that we should all build from there, right?"

Malik smiled back at Isis, hoping that his eyes didn't look too earnest with the words.

 _Crap, I laid it on too thick. She must think I'm faking it,_ Malik grimaced as there was a small pause between them, but his worries were put to rest when Isis finally nodded with a hum.

"Well said, brother," Isis complimented. "Honestly? I declined the offer because I didn't have my gear with me."

"Sounds fair enough," Rishid intoned, and Malik held his chin in his hand. That would explain why Isis called him a squid yesterday.

"Also," Isis murmured, "getting back to what I said earlier, we have very noticeable... preferences."

"But what I offered was street riding, not dirt," Malik said with a cocked brow. "Why would it have mattered when Lady Death was made for urban cruising?"

"Well, that's just it. Lady Death is a cruiser," Isis said, slowly, carefully, trying to select her next words with heavy caution. "I'm just used to... different gearing."

"But how does that matter when I'm the one up front?" Malik pressed. "I still don't get it, Sister."

"Well, it's not so much because _you_ _'re_ the one up front, per se," Isis said, once again, cautiously. "It's just, the way I like to ride, and what I prefer, they aren't exactly _compatible_ with Lady Death."

"I still don't follow, Isis."

"When I ride Dakar and want to accelerate, the gearing is such that the pull is instantaneous when I shift and blip the throttle," Isis said quickly, and Malik needed to take a moment to calibrate that those words came out of his sister's mouth. "With Lady Death, I've noticed that when you accelerate, her power lies... in the top end."

A long silence passed between the Ishtars then, and only the sound of Dakar's idle puttering filled the awkward void. Rishid pursed his lips and Malik squinted, before his eyes blanched and his jaw dropped.

"W-wait a minute!" Malik shouted, affronted, offended at the deduction. "A-are you... Are you implying..."

"Malik," Isis said carefully, but it was too late to take it back.

"Are you saying Lady Death is too _slow_ for you?!" Malik screamed.

"Not _exactly_ ," Isis confessed. "I'm just used to Dakar in that his power leans more toward the low-to-mid end, so the torque is always there when I need it. Lady Death's power is in the top end, and with how she's geared, it just... takes her a while to get there," Isis finished lamely.

"YOU _ARE_ SAYING SHE'S SLOW!" Malik cried and Rishid cringed at the sound of him whining. "Isis, how _could_ you–"

With the movement of her left foot, Isis shifted her bike into first gear.

"Well, will you look at the time? I need to get going!"

She hadn't glanced once at her watch during the whole exchange.

"I'll see you in a couple of days. Love you both. May the eyes of Ra watch over you. Bye!"

"Sister!" Malik growled. "Don't you even _think_ about–"

Isis didn't have to think about it, because she _did_. Malik and Rishid covered their ears as the rubber squealed when Isis pulled away with the twist of the throttle, speeding out of the storage unit and balancing on the rear tire as she lifted the front in the air with her exit. The thunderous sound of the dual sport's exhaust bounced off the concrete walls of the garage and the ground shook beneath them.

" _That's_ from a single cylinder?" Rishid asked, lifting his hands away from his ears and tapping them several times to clear out the ringing.

"There's no way that's the standard exhaust. She must have upgraded that too," Malik said, aggressively turning his pinky finger in his right ear with a squint. "I can't believe she just popped a wheelie and dropped a rev bomb on us."

"Well, she does have a long trip ahead..." Rishid said evenly, trying his best to defend her.

"She still needs to punch in the code at the gate to get out," Malik said lowly. "We can still catch up with her."

Rishid immediately recognized the implication and tried to placate him.

"Malik, please, leave her be. She didn't mean anything by it," Rishid uttered. He reached out in futility as the platinum blonde Egyptian sprinted away from his grasp.

"She insulted Lady Death!" Malik cried over his shoulder, hurt still brimming in his narrowed lavender eyes. "Speaking down about her while she sits on top of that dirty old thumper! She's not getting off that easily!"

"Malik, come back!"

\- 0 – 0 – 0 -

Isis tossed the lock and key in the drop box, as required, before her fingers flew across the number pad for the gate exit.

The reveal didn't go quite as awkwardly as she had inferred, but she did wish it had ended on a better note. Perhaps, over the course of three days, Malik would reflect on the words between them and realize that Isis had really meant to say...

As the gate creaked open, she registered her brothers running towards her in the reflection of her right side mirror, Malik looking determined and Rishid looking beside himself. Surely, her little brother couldn't have been _that_ upset with her? She tried to be delicate. She tried to be articulate. She tried to be sensible. All she had been trying to explain was–

Oh, who was she kidding? It was exactly what it sounded like.

Lady Death was _slow_.

"Let us show him how it is done," Isis smirked, patting the left side of the large gas tank where Dakar's name was branded. Isis waited dutifully with a small smile over her shoulder, until they were a few meters within hearing distance.

"Isis, get back over here and apologize!" Malik shouted.

"Later, little brother!" Isis saluted, and just as they had approached three meters to where she was, she twisted the throttle and tore out of the parking lot, disappearing between the multitude of cars and tuk-tuks in the first wave of Cairo's morning rush hour traffic. By the time her brothers ran past the exit and onto the sidewalk outside the storage complex, she was nowhere to be seen or heard.

"Wow, she's right. That thing is a torque monster," Malik panted. "That fat dirt bike pulls away fast."

There was another long moment of silence between them as they stared at the passing traffic, before Rishid placed his hand on Malik's shoulder.

"... Are you worried about her at all?" he asked, watching the sky shift from magenta to light blue.

" _No_ ," Malik fibbed. "It's _Isis_ of all people. She'll be fine."

Rishid knew better than to comment on the underlying qualms to Malik's tone, but the younger Egyptian was kicking himself for lying.

 _Of_ _course_ he was worried because Isis was _his_ _sister._ It wasn't until several hours ago that he had thought they operated on completely different sides of the stratosphere when they had really grown with frightening similarities despite being locked in a hapless battle for the past several years. He and Isis shared common interests, and knowing this was absolutely _terrifying_. This meant that there was a possibility that his magnanimous, rational, _responsible_ big sister was just as equally capable of being as impulsive and reckless as he was if it suited her in the moment to act as such.

This meant that, as he and Rishid were walking to their respective motorcycles to head back home, Isis could very well have been contemplating whether it would be quicker to hop on a curb, or to pass on the shoulder, or to cross over the median, or to taunt the local police with their legal limitations by popping a wheelie in front of them because she had a government plate on the back (Malik certainly would have if Lady Death had one). If Isis Ishtar, a single, intelligent, independent young woman in her early 20s, was perfectly capable of exploring uncharted desert at a whim, capable of fixing up a motorcycle by just _reading_ the damn manual, capable of solo trips across multiple countries, then it wasn't at all out of line for Malik to worry that Isis was also perfectly capable of doing _unsafe_ _hooligan_ _crap_ outside her brothers' supervision.

And there was nothing he could do about it.

Malik wanted to cry.

Why did Dakar have to be a _motorcycle_?

Why couldn't he have just been a dirty French boyfriend?

 **END**

* * *

Author's Notes: I see a lot of stories about Isis being the fussy one while Malik tends to be the more "free spirited" of the two, but I really wanted to play around with the idea of them sharing particular mannerisms. I also wanted to dabble with a case of Perceptions vs. Reality, in which we get a look into who Malik imagines his sister to be as opposed to who Isis really is along with some "what ifs". It was fun to write.

Okay, okay, and I maybe wanted to be a _teensy_ bit indulgent after doing fanart of Isis on a motorcycle (which can be found on my deviantart and tumblr pages). Can you blame me?

Thank you for reading.


End file.
